The Cost of Tragedy And Bad Planning: $2 Million Payout to MUNI Accident Victim…

Several Loyal Readers emailed me this story in today’s Chronicle, detailing the settlement between a victim of a horrible accident on the N Judah line and the city. $2 million dollars will be paid to the victim, which to me seems to be miniscule given the tremendous amount of suffering this woman had as a result of the accident.
Once again we see a troubling trend at MUNI – half-baked ideas to “cut the budget’ or avoid the investments up front in things the system needs, only to pay many times more out in settlements later on (not to mention the death and destruction as well).
I take no pleasure in my early attempts to bitch, complain, discuss, and otherwise talk to death this topic, but I think it’s time to ask the Big Paid People at City Hall to get it together, use those chess club brains of theirs, and plan a bit more intelligently for the future.
We’re already paying the price of the half-assed spending of the 90s, where we deferred maintenance and killed spending for training, and we’ll continue to pay dearly (in lives and money) if we keep this up.
Many people are running for Supervisor this year. Maybe the next time one of ’em bugs you for a vote, you should ask them what they’re going to do that’s different. And if they either give you more soft-headed rhetoric or a slack-jawed “duh?”, don’t elect ’em.